babies

Five minute Friday: “small”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

photo credit: emilybalazsphotography.blogspot.com

I pick him up from the crib where’s he’s peacefully curled up tight; I cradle this newest nephew. It is his being small that is so inviting. To cuddle, to kiss, to feel reassured as he falls back asleep on my shoulder. The small mouth, nose, hands, feet … it is human in miniature form. And who is not awed by the sight of a baby?

Small is what I try to avoid. I don’t want to need anything or anyone larger than me. I want be big; to write big; to speak big; to be big and help others and not ever ever ever need to return to small, dependent reality.

Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

But it is reality for all of us humans when we see a glimpse of who God is – like seeing a horizon’s edge of ocean meeting sky, or being enveloped by a mountain range, or peering down the Cliffs of Moher on an Irish coast … it is actually in this being small I am able to feel utterly safe, realizing I am cradled in the arms of a God who is big enough to hold me, to give what I need before I know what or how to ask for it, to draw me close to him in love before I even know his name.

As my small nephew cuddled up to his  Aunt Heather last night, not knowing who I am but feeling the love I have, so may I draw close to my God who holds me in his big embrace.

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I’m back for my favorite of blog activities, Five Minute Friday. Write for five minutes unedited on a topic given by Lisa-Jo Baker each Friday. Link up to this community here.

Tiny miracles

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

A first poem for Lucia and Alethia, written in that euphoric semi-sleepy state I live in these days:

You knit them together –

Tiny miracles

Each small sigh and cry

Annoucing their existence

The joy and delight immeasurable

Wrapped up inside tiny pink bundles

We proudly display them

In photos, on a walk, in videos to capture each magical moment.

But is there a moment with them that is not full of magic?

How to choose which to catch, which to let pass?

All the days ordained for them were written –

Authored and chosen by their Maker

Given to us like an ever-unfolding story

Hour by hour, day by day, night by (sleepless) night

A joyful exhaustion as we discover

Each day written for them

What it will hold: a first sleepy smile?

A furrowed brow like Dad’s?

Wide-eyed and alert, they take in the world in small bits

The outside world is all new for them.

And so now they must rest and sleep.

It is tiring to be so new

To be so tiny

To be such a miracle in such a bundle

I close my eyes to rest – to soak in the wonder –

And to hold them close as they cry.

Would that they would always be so quickly comforted!

My heart is full with a love that came into existence

With their birth

And a desire that their first memories would be of me loving them.

Only possible as I soak in my Father’s loveTo pass it along to them

In its pure form, undliluted by sin and failure

Meaning it must come from Him

The One who has knit them together,

Marked out each day,

And placed His indelible likeness upon them each –

To which their precious faces testify as they reflect this hidden glory.